Droid X Antenna Rig

[xmguy]

A while back I posted of an idea to build an antenna rig that could pull in distant stations. I posted a how to. Well I finished the project.
Doesn't look pretty. But it's goal isn't to win a fashion contest. It's to get far away FM signals. It works perfectly!

BEST about this design. It's removable (easily). Does NOT damage or scratch the phone.

The only thing I must add. Is if you want to build this you will also need a very sharp knife to cut away the "rubber" coating and get to the plastic so the 3M tape and electrical tape will adhere.


HOW TO/PARTS

Images.

Prep:



Scraping the rubber coating off the case to get to bare plastic for better adhesion.




Placing 3M double sided tape on left side of case.



Attaching telescoping antenna to case WITH antenna lead attached (used 1 strand of Ethernet cable)



Putting a top layer of 3M tape to hold the antenna from pulling off and to better hold to case



With a SECOND layer on the back added as in image before. Began to add electrical tape to hold wire down and "clean" up the look of the case.



Project completed



Project completed (back) with extra 3M tape added to hold the heavy headphone cable to case.



Phone in case and running FM Radio




All in all this cost over $25 but I now can get stations from as far away as 80 Miles and very weak stations previously unforeseen.

Alternatively this can be done with a simple headphone remote cable with the 4 connections on the jack. It will not be as strong.

Also I bought a RC Car transmitter antenna. It's VERY fragile. It may break. You might want to get a stronger antenna . The metal on this antenna is very thin so it has alot of "flex" in the sections.

[yukmizzee]

Wow, your a champ man. I wouldnt dare do that to my X but I applaud you good sir.

[xmguy]

Wow, your a champ man. I wouldnt dare do that to my X but I applaud you good sir.

THANKS!

If I could not have gotten a case neither would I. The inside of the case where the phone is is UNTOUCHED. I did NO modifying to that. I baby my Droid X too much to do that. But this works and it does it without hurting the phone or the finish.

[Raziel36]

Smaller antenna and integrate the headphone plug directly on the bottom of the antenna.. would be how I would go about this, but I didn't even consider the option until I saw this. Thanks for getting my wheels turning. I have used my Square Card Reader to get the FM app to work, when I didn't have headphones with me.

If I decide to change from Fission, back to a blurred rom, I will have to tinker with this idea.

Sent from my DROIDX using DroidForums App

[xmguy]

How were you able to enable the fm radio without headphones?! Id be interested in that. Thanks

I was thinking of wiring a smaller gauge headphone wire to the antenna. But im gonna use this see how it works.

Sent from XMGUY's Droid X.

[Raziel36]

How were you able to enable the fm radio without headphones?! Id be interested in that. Thanks

I was thinking of wiring a smaller gauge headphone wire to the antenna. But im gonna use this see how it works.

Sent from XMGUY's Droid X.

Anything plugged into the headphone jack should do the trick. I had signed up for and received my free credit/debit card reader from Square. It utilizes the headphone jack. When plugged in, the FM app would work fine, though it's not as good as headphones for picking up a signal, it did work.

Sent from my DROIDX using DroidForums App

[xmguy]

How you able to enable the fm radio without headphones?! Id be interested in that. Thanks

I was thinking of wiring a smaller gauge headphone wire to the antenna. But im gonna use this see how it works.

Sent from XMGUY's Droid X.

Anything plugged into the headphone jack should do the trick. I had signed up for and received my free credit/debit card reader from Square. It utilizes the headphone jack. When plugged in, the FM app would work fine, though it's not as good as headphones for picking up a signal, it did work.

Sent from my DROIDX using DroidForums App

Never heard of a setup like that. Why use a credit card reader? Why does a reader come with a headphone plug? Actually any wire connected to the ground or negative will act as an antenna via headphone jack.


Sent from XMGUY's Droid X.

[Raziel36]

How you able to enable the fm radio without headphones?! Id be interested in that. Thanks

I was thinking of wiring a smaller gauge headphone wire to the antenna. But im gonna use this see how it works.

Sent from XMGUY's Droid X.

Anything plugged into the headphone jack should do the trick. I had signed up for and received my free credit/debit card reader from Square. It utilizes the headphone jack. When plugged in, the FM app would work fine, though it's not as good as headphones for picking up a signal, it did work.

Sent from my DROIDX using DroidForums App

Never heard of a setup like that. Why use a credit card reader? Why does a reader come with a headphone plug? Actually any wire connected to the ground or negative will act as an antenna via headphone jack.


Sent from XMGUY's Droid X.

The card reader was designed for Android devices and uses the headphone jack to transmit the card data to the Square app. The reason I used it, was simply because I didn't have headphones with me and wanted to see if it would work for initializing the FM app.

This is the reader I used for this:


Sent from my DROIDX using DroidForums App

[xmguy]

Anything plugged into the headphone jack should do the trick. I had signed up for and received my free credit/debit card reader from Square. It utilizes the headphone jack. When plugged in, the FM app would work fine, though it's not as good as headphones for picking up a signal, it did work.

Sent from my DROIDX using DroidForums App

Never heard of a setup like that. Why use a credit card reader? Why does a reader come with a headphone plug? Actually any wire connected to the ground or negative will act as an antenna via headphone jack.


Sent from XMGUY's Droid X.

The card reader was designed for Android devices and uses the headphone jack to transmit the card data to the Square app. The reason I used it, was simply because I didn't have headphones with me and wanted to see if it would work for initializing the FM app.

This is the reader I used for this:


Sent from my DROIDX using DroidForums App

Sent from XMGUY's Droid X.

Very cool. Have to look into that.

[xmguy]

After doing extensive field testing with the FM antenna rig. I surmised that I am able to get high powered stations about 75+ miles away about 80% of the time (Stations that are 100,000 watts). Weaker signals were less than impressive. About 10% of signals from lower powered stations (5000 watts or less). From stations a distance of 30 - 40 miles. Varies on the terrain. So if anyone else wants to build this needs help shoot me a PM. Will help how I can. If you are like me and enjoy FM radio then give the build a try. It definitely pays off as most major stations broadcast with 100,000 watts. It's definitely better than using just headphones.

Sent from XMGUY's Droid X.